Shammi Kapoor & the two women who shaped his life & career

When on August 15 2011, a day after his death, they took Shammi Kapoor’s body to the cremation ground the turn-out was beyond anything imaginable. Shammi was cremated at Ban Ganga because his first wife Geeta Bali was cremated there. And the whole Kapoor clan came together as one family for the final farewell…Who but Shammi Kapoor could’ve managed this feat! Chahe mujhe koi junglee kahe was being played for the final send-off. The funeral process was going very slowly because of the number of people. People peeped into the ambulance, threw flowers inside and said ‘Yahoo’.

It was then that Shammi’s son Aditya Raj Kapoor realized what being Shammi Kapoor’s son really meant….When Aditya was six, Shammi got the child admitted into a boarding school, Lawrence School in Sanawar. Shammi went to Aditya’s boarding school every year for Founders Day. In Shammi Kapoor’s time fans had no access to him through Internet, television or magazines. They’d barge into his home at any time. The children Aditya and Kanchan (the latter is married to Manmohan Desai’s son Ketan) were left with no space that they could call their own. It was their second mother Neela Devi who made that space for the children in their home.

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Neela Devi devoted her life to her husband, decided not to have any kids of her own because Shammi’s two children from his first marriage would feel threatened.

Shammi Kapoor’s second marriage to Neela Devi was almost blessed by Geeta Bali. Shammi loved both his wives to death. But Geeta Bali was Geeta Bali.She was the only woman in the world who could punch Shammi and get away with it. She is the one who turned Shammi Kapoor into the ‘Yahoo’ star. Before the ebullient Geeta Bali came into his life, Shammi Kapoor was under the shadows of his father Prithviraj Kapoor and his brother Raj Kapoor. Geeta brought a change of image. She made him the ‘Yahoo’ star.

When she fell ill Shammi left his shooting and picked up both the children. Shammi was shooting for Teesri Manzil when Geeta Bali died.

His costar Asha Parekh recalls, “It was a very somber atmosphere on the set when Shammi Chacha—that’s what I called him—returned for shooting. We didn’t really want to shoot. But Shammi Chacha needed to divert his mind from the loss to his work. We shot a very mellow song Tumne mujhe dekha hokar meherban . If you look at the song everyone on screen is looking so sad.”

The show went on. But Shammi Kapoor never really got over the loss of his first wife.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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